It can be. You basically just have to accept that there is a 50/50 chance that you are putting that money in the toilet and never seeing the final project.

I backed System Shock remake, and that was a nightmare. I put in $350 and the project was delivered extremely late after pretty egregious mismanagement. I think the only thing that saved the project was that Night Dive Studios is kind of a well known studio. Probably a nobody or start up would have just given up and kept the money.